Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER 14

Fear cements my feet to the ground, and all I can hear are the automated screams and footsteps echoing in the darkness. And then he begins to speak.

"You have so much more fight in you than the others," the figure says. His voice is deep and resonant. It might have been soothing if it wasn't coming out of a man who has been hunting me and my friends like wild game.

"Where is she?" Anger bubbles up inside me. "Where is Paige?"

The man lifts his hand and points toward the lake. "Her blood soaks the ground and her body lies at the bottom of the lake, as does the boy's, as do the bodies of the ones before. Feed the land with blood and the lake with flesh, and anything you could ever want can be yours."

Bezi gasps as I gaze out over the rippling black water of Mirror Lake.

"You're lying!" I scream through a torrent of tears.

"Why should I lie?" he asks. "I'm telling you this because you must understand that your deaths will not be for nothing. Your sacrifice will usher in a new era for my Order. You should be honored."

"Honored?" I say through gritted teeth.

"Yes," says the man. He takes a step toward me, and he suddenly seems taller, more imposing than he did just a moment before. "Do you know how long this Order has been in existence? You were in our lodge. I know you saw what we did there, but you don't understand. How could you? Our rituals may seem barbaric, but they are the key to everything we once possessed."

"I don't care," I say angrily.

"Oh, but you should," he hisses from beneath the mask. "You were chosen, Charity."

A wave of confusion rolls over me. "How do you know my name?"

His shoulders rise just slightly. I don't know if he's smiling under that mask, but I feel like he is. "I know much more than that, thanks to someone very close to you. Someone who couldn't wait to see your guts splashed across these hallowed grounds."

My blood runs cold. Something had been digging at me. I felt it when I pulled that dead owl down from the roof and again when I saw those owl figures carved into the trees.

"You haven't put it together?" the man asks. "How did you come to be at this place, Charity? What was the thing that brought a lonely girl, whose own family couldn't care less if she lives or dies, here?"

I'd gotten this job because Mr. Lamont hired me, but it wasn't him who tipped me off about the job that first summer. It was someone else. Someone who couldn't wait to get me out of the house.

"Rob."

The man in the mask is smiling. I know it.

"Do you know what you can obtain by sacrificing your own family?" the man asks, as if I should have an answer. "It's a very special sort of thing."

Rob brought me the ad. Rob insisted I follow up on it. It was Rob who acted surprised every time I showed back up at home when the season was over. And it was in Rob's notebook that I found that sketch of an owl identical to the ones carved into the trees in the forest, and it was his taxidermic birds of prey, his owls, that watched me as I slept.

"He wanted me to die out here?" I ask in disbelief. "He—he knew about what you were doing?"

The man laughs. "A rumor led him to us. He thought he could curry favor by sending you here to die. Think of it as an act of goodwill, promises of what he was willing to do for us." A hissing sound erupts from under the mask, like he's blowing air out from between his teeth in disgust. "Unfortunately for him, he isn't the type of person I'd ever bring into the fold of our sacred Order." He laughs again, but it is an arrogant, boastful sort of sound. "We have used this power to chart paths for presidents, dictators, the wealthy, the elite. You have no idea the influence we once held." He tips his head back and sighs. "Your mother's pathetic excuse for a boyfriend was not worthy of benefiting from our rituals, Charity." He levels his head. "But I am."

The man crouches low to the ground, then springs forward and is suddenly standing directly in front of me. He towers over me, and the pale flesh of his chest heaves as a guttural growl erupts from his throat. He reaches for Bezi, and I instinctively grab his arm. He turns his attention to me, and his hand is around my neck before I can move. Bezi's screams fill my ears as the man lifts me straight off the ground and throws me across the path and into the side of the boathouse.

I strike the side of the building with such force that the air is violently expelled from my lungs in one painful exhalation. My vision goes black. I can't move or breathe or see anything for several moments. But I can hear, and Bezi's cries fill me with dread. The pain comes in a flood and tears through my body from my tailbone to my neck. I roll over and look up at the nighttime sky.

"Get away from me!" Bezi screams.

I roll up onto my elbow, and a fresh wave of agony crests over me. I swallow the vomit rising in the back of my throat and force my eyes to focus. The man in the owl mask is bearing down on Bezi as she scrambles away from him. He grabs her wrist and wrenches it sideways. There's a loud pop and Bezi yelps. I try to stand but can't get my legs to do what I want them to.

"Get away!" Bezi cries.

I grab hold of the boathouse and pull myself up. It hurts to move, but I lurch onto the path, grabbing a large stick from the underbrush. I stumble forward just as the man grabs Bezi by the sides of her head. The muscles in the backs of his arms flex as he presses in. Bezi isn't screaming anymore. She's clawing at his hands and at the mask, and little white feathers are swirling around in the air like snowflakes.

I raise the stick and bring it down across his back as hard as I can. The stick breaks in two, but the man doesn't flinch. I start to tear at the naked skin of his back when suddenly I hear a long, high whistle. I turn in the direction of the sound and see a tall, lumbering figure with their arm raised in front of them.

"Charity!" a familiar voice shouts. "Move!"

I duck out of the way, and a gunshot splits the air.

The man in the owl regalia lets go of Bezi, and she crumples to the ground. The man stumbles back and turns to face the figure. Blood pours from a hole in the center of the man's chest. The bullet has ripped straight through him. The white feathers are smeared with blood, and a gurgling sound is coming from under the mask. The man collapses to his knees, and I loop my arms under Bezi's and pull her away.

He wobbles and then falls face-first into the dirt. I stare at his body as it grows eerily still. A pool of blood fans out underneath him.

The other man ascends the steps to the office and looks back at me. "I'm calling the police," he says. He reaches into his pocket and steps inside the office. I scoop Bezi up and, supporting most of her weight on my aching body, I drag her to the office and up the front steps. Inside, I put her in the chair behind the front desk.

"Lock the door," I say to the man.

He does.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"No," I say. I turn to him, and while I'm certain I know his voice, I can't place his face, though there is something familiar about him.

"Charity?" he says. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I suddenly realize . . . ?it's Mr. Lamont. It's been so long since I've seen him face-to-face that I couldn't place him. I rush forward and wrap my arms around him, and he gently pats my back.

"Oh my god!" I sob. "That guy was trying to kill us! Him and some people in the woods! Mr. Lamont, we have to call the police."

"I did," he says. "They should be here soon. We just stay put till then." He sits in the extra chair by the window. "What kind of mess did I step into here, Charity?"

"I don't even know where to start," I say as I try to comfort Bezi, who I think is going into some kind of shock. I grab the first aid kit from under the desk and wrap her mangled wrist in an Ace bandage. "Porter and my friend Paige are dead." As the words leave my lips, they don't seem real. "I think Jordan and Heather too. And Felix . . . they're all dead."

"My god." Mr. Lamont sighs and shakes his head, a blank expression on his face. "And the others?"

"Javier and Tasha are at the hospital. Kyle is on his way here."

Mr. Lamont takes a tissue from his pocket and dabs at the sweat beading on his forehead. "Good. That's very good."

It finally feels like we've got someone on our side, someone who didn't hesitate to protect us when we needed it. I shudder to think of what would have happened if Mr. Lamont hadn't been there to stop the man in the owl mask. I go to the phone and pick up the receiver before setting it back down again. I momentarily forgot the assholes in the woods cut the line. I turn to Mr. Lamont, who's now standing. "Can I use your phone?"

"What?" he asks.

"Your phone? I should call . . ." I almost say I should call my mom, but I begin to think of what it means that Rob had a hand in sending me up here to die. Did she know what he was doing? I bite my tongue, trying desperately not to cry. "I should call Bezi's mom. I couldn't charge my phone after those people cut the power."

"Oh, I don't have a phone."

I glance at the landline and then back to Mr. Lamont, who has moved to the window, where he's now peering through the curtain.

"You don't have a phone?" The words echo out of me, and time seems to slow to a crawl.

"No," Mr. Lamont says.

The room suddenly feels too small. "How did you call the police if you don't have a phone?"

Mr. Lamont turns and glances at the landline. He huffs out a laugh and reaches inside his coat. "Looks like I've put myself in a very awkward situation."

Bezi clutches my arm.

"What—what do you mean?" I ask. "And how did you know we needed help out here? We wanted to call you, but we didn't get a chance."

I take a single step toward the office door, and Mr. Lamont moves in front of it.

"Charity," Bezi says in a terrified whisper.

The corners of Mr. Lamont's mouth draw up in a sinister grin. Something in his expression shifts. Where before there was concern, now there is only malice, anger.

He clicks his tongue behind his teeth. "After all this time, a final girl finally caught up with me." He shakes his head. "Predictable."

"Mr. Lamont?" I don't even recognize my own voice now.

"Don't be afraid, Charity," Mr. Lamont says. "This will all be over soon."